As those who have been born of God with His life and nature, we should love the Lord Jesus in all the divine, spiritual, heavenly, and incorruptible things revealed in the book of Ephesians. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility (Eph. 6:24).
This is to love Him not merely in sincerity (which can be natural and corruptible) or in incorruption (which is a state of being incorrupt) but in incorruptibility, where our love cannot be corrupted.
We may love the Lord for what He has done for us or for what He has given to us, but this may be corruptible, for some things may happen to us that we may not like, and then our love for the Lord may be shaken or corrupted.
We need to love the Lord Jesus in incorruptibility by loving Him in the new creation and according to all the incorruptible things revealed in Ephesians. We need to love the Lord Jesus as the embodiment of the Triune God, as the element and constituent of the Body of Christ, as the reality, grace, peace, and love and light, and in His being the constituent of the one new man.
The more we read the Bible and pray over these matters, the more we love the Lord, for He is everything to God and to man, and He is everything in the church. What should occupy our heart is not our self or our own desire but the Triune God, Christ, and the church.
We need to muse on the word of God, eat the word of God, prayerfully consider the Triune God and His work, Christ and His accomplishments, and the church with its significance, and as we exercise our spirit to do this, we will love the Lord Jesus in incorruptibility.
However, we should not look at ourselves to find or see this love, for love for God doesn’t originate from us. God is the source of our love, love is of God, and love is the essence of God. What we have is merely the image, shadow, and container of love.
Only Christ is and has the absolute love. When Paul tells the husbands to love their wives he adds, Even as Christ also loved the church. This means that our love should not be a natural love but Christ Himself as love filling our virtue of love.
All husbands have to admit that they love their wife, but eventually their love runs out. Only when Christ as love comes in to fill our love can we love our wife to the extent that we lay down our life for her. Only when Christ comes in to fill our virtue of love can we love Him with a love that is incorruptible.
Don’t look at yourself for love for the Lord or for others – simply be in the word of God to be infused with Christ as the real love, and He in you will love God and will love the others with Himself as love. We need to love the Lord Jesus with a love that is incorruptible, and this love is just Christ Himself as our love.
We need to Love the Lord Jesus in the Divine and Spiritual Things with an Incorruptible Love
If we love the Lord Jesus in the divine and spiritual things revealed in the word of God – and especially those in the book of Ephesians, our love for Him will be incorruptible. Such a love will not be a natural love but a love in resurrection, a love that is God Himself in His divine essence (1 John 4:16).
Our natural love is merely a shadow, a container for love, but the real love is God Himself as love, the love which is in resurrection. Love is the nature of God’s essence, and this love is incorruptible. It is easier to understand what is corruptible love than what is the incorruptible love.
The corruptible love is natural, signified by honey – which was not allowed to be added to the meal offering. We should not love the Lord in a natural way, neither should we love and shepherd the saints in a natural and preferential way.
For example, in Matt. 16 we see that Peter loved the Lord, but his love was natural, full of his natural thought and affection.
Therefore, out of his love for the Lord, Peter wanted to stop Christ from going to the cross. His love for the Lord was missed with his natural affection and thought, and his love was also mixed with pride, for he said, Even if all leave You, I will not – I’m ready to die for You!
Peter was sincere, but he was totally in his corruptible natural life and affection, plus his flesh and his pride. James and John also loved the Lord, and their love was mixed with ambition; and their mother also, she had ambition for her sons.
Mary and Martha loved the Lord, but only Mary was the one who really listened to the Lord’s desire and the pouring out of His heart.
The Lord was talking about Him going to die and then resurrect; He was about to go through the final stages of His earthly ministry to be crucified for our redemption and be resurrected for our regeneration, and this is what occupied His heart and what He told His disciples and those in the house of Lazarus.
But instead of listening to the Lord and appreciating the Father’s will, the disciples were trying to see who will be the first after the Lord was gone.
Only Mary stopped herself, loved the Lord in incorruptibility, with no ambition or element of the self; she loved the Lord for the Lord. Another case of loving the Lord in corruptibility is seen in Matt. 6, where some give to the Lord but in such a way that everyone sees and hears about it.
When we love the Lord Jesus and we give, we need to do it in secret; our praying, fasting, and giving should be in secret, not in corruptibility.
Some love the Lord Jesus because He does many things for them, He helps them, He comforts them, and He takes them through tough situations; but such love can be corruptible unless we love the Lord Jesus in the divine, spiritual, heavenly, and incorruptible things revealed in God’s word concerning the Triune God, the divine life, what Christ is to us, what He has done, and the church (see Eph. 1:3-23; 2:5-6, 13-18; 3:16-21; 4:4-6; 5:23, 25-27).
Lord Jesus, save us from loving You in corruptibility, with a love that is full of the natural affection, the self, and ambition. Purify our heart, Lord, and keep us loving You in all the divine, spiritual, heavenly, and incorruptible things revealed in the Bible concerning the Triune God, the divine life, what Christ is to us, what He has done, and the church. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You! We put ourselves aside. Fill us with Yourself as love. May we love You for Yourself, for what You are, with a love that is incorruptible!
We have been Born of God with His Life and Nature to be Genuine Children of God
The more we love the Lord in incorruptibility, the more we will walk in love and light, for we are children of God.
Every genuine believer in Christ is a child of God, born of God with His divine life and nature, and he possesses the life of God and the nature of God, thus belonging to the species of God (see 1 John 3:1; John 1:12-13).
God is our genuine and real Father, and we are the genuine and real children of God (Eph. 5:1).
We are not adopted by God; God did not come to pick some whom He favors to adopt them to be His children. Rather, we are born of God with His life and nature, and this is not a metaphor: God actually begot us when we were born again, when we were regenerated!
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). When we are born again, we are born of God, who is Spirit; the Spirit enters into our spirit to revive, revitalize, regenerate, and enliven our spirit, and now we are children of God.
Adam was the son of God only in image and likeness, but without the life and nature of God.
We as believers are not only created by God but also born of God, and we have the authority to say that we are children of God, for we have God’s image and likeness, and we also have God’s life and nature.
The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16).
The children of God are God-men – they are men who are born of God, so they have both the human nature and the divine nature, both the human life and the divine life.
What a wonder, that human beings could be begotten of God, and sinners can be made children of God!
Through such an amazing divine birth we the believers in Christ have received the divine life, the eternal life. In addition to our human life we have another life – the divine, uncreated, eternal life of God.
We have been born of the divine life, we possess the divine life, and we are divine persons – we are divine-human persons.
The greatest wonder in the universe is that human beings could be begotten of God and that sinners could be made children of God (see 1 John 3:1, 9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18; John 1:12-13).
Since we have been born of the divine life and we possess it, we as children of God are divine persons, and we are becoming the same as our Father – the same as He is in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead.
Hallelujah, we have the divine life and the divine nature of God, and now we can walk in love and light, because love is the nature of God’s essence and light is the nature of His expression.
Hallelujah, we are children of God – we are God-men, men born of God possessing the life and nature of God and belonging to the species of God! Praise the Lord, God is our real, genuine Father, and we are His real, genuine children! We were not adopted: we were born of God, begotten of God, to be the children of God, the many God-men in Christ! Thank You Lord for such a wonderful fact: we human beings were begotten of God, and we as sinners are made children of God! Lord, thank You for making us divine persons, those who enjoy God’s life and God’s nature!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” pp. 461-462, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 5, Knowing the Significance of Loving the Lord, Loving the Lord Jesus Christ in Incorruptibility, and Walking in Love and Light.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Draw me, Lord, each day. / Take my veils away. / With a pure heart will I see You; / Lord I just love You. / Nothing else I seek; / No one else for me. / I would fully and absolutely / Give my whole being unto Thee. (Song on, Lord, You love me so immensely)
# A purer, deeper lover of Christ; / Lord, keep our hearts so tenderly. / Teach us to trust You and obey. / Lord, soften and renew. / Lord, capture us, appear to us. / You’re matchless in Your beauty and worth. / Abide, we, in Your preciousness; / We’re lovers of this living Person. (Song on, We Love, We Love with All of Our Heart)
# Did you know that all the Bible / Is a will, a testament? / Everything that Christ accomplished / Is for all God’s children meant. / As His child you are included, / For His word stands fast and true; / So by faith you now inherit / All that He has done for you. (Hymns #1332)
About aGodMan
